Love is Like Oxygen

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Set after Murder At Sea, Starsky and Hutch arrive back at the canal side cottage only hours before an arsonist lobs a molotov cocktail through the window of Hutch’s home.

 

Originally published in the S/H zine, The Perfect Couple, published by Keri T. and Flamingo in 2010.

I have played a little loose with the time line. Love is like Oxygen was released by Sweet in January 1978. This story is set in October 1976, so it’s only a year and a half difference!

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Chalking his exhaustion up to the one-hour time zone difference between Mexico and California, Hutch yawned widely as he pulled onto the road leading up to his canal-side Venice bungalow. It seemed like years since he’d been home instead of a mere five days.

“Some things are better left unsaid
I’m gonna spend my days in bed . . .
Love is like . . . “

He switched off the radio and the notes of the song lingered in the air, merging into the intermittent ticking of the cooling car. Outside in the canal, a duck sleepily scolded its mate. The low drone of frogs was a counterpoint to the distant wail of a fire engine.

The sounds of home. So much better than constant calypso music, the thrum of a ship’s engine, and the shocking, concussive thud of a bomb going off in the middle of the ocean.

“No more cruises, ever,” Hutch vowed. “Don’t care if my parents do decide that they want to spend their thirty-fifth anniversary on a month-long voyage around the Mediterranean, and they promise to pay my way. I’m still not going.”

“Huh?” Starsky roused from his boneless sprawl in the passenger seat, stretching until the tendons in his shoulders cracked like popcorn in a pan. “Your mom and dad are sailing around the Mediterranean?”

“They’ve been talking about it.” Hutch got out, standing in the lane next to his cottage, breathing in the brisk night air. They’d managed to escape Huggarino the Great’s inept magic act only to end up waylaid by the combined forces of the Bay City PD and several FBI agents investigating organized crime and the Cairo brothers, in particular. Eight hours of debriefing without any dinner after three days with little rest, and the words “bed” and “sleep” took on mystical properties. Hutch forced his mind away from the last week and back to the conversation at hand. “I never thought they’d make it thirty-five years. Was sure they’d get a divorce.”

“Looks like they’re trying to make things work?” Starsky wrestled with the persnickety handle and shoved the car door open. The hinges shrieked like banshees rising from the dead. “Need some WD-40,” he commented.

“I think it’s going to be either forced togetherness for a month in a single stateroom, or a court appearance complete with his and her lawyers,” Hutch said bitterly, swinging his car door shut. He hadn’t meant to bring out all his family’s dirty laundry, but he and Starsky rarely kept secrets from one another. “Got a letter when I ran home to pack just before we sailed on Friday.” He just stood, looking up at the dark sky. “My parents always loved each other; they just had a really hard time living together.”

“With you and your sister out of the house all this time, they had to talk to one another?” Starsky quirked a smile.

“That’s about right.” Hutch eyed his mailbox stuffed with bills and circulars. He wasn’t about to write any checks tonight, might as well leave them there. He unlocked the door and stepped aside to let Starsky walk in ahead of him. The living room looked exactly the same. Which meant that Fifi had gotten the note he’d taped to her front door and hadn’t come to clean. “You want to crash here tonight?”

“My car’s at Metro.” Starsky yawned, scratching his groin. “I’m wiped out. Think I could probably sleep standing up.”

“How’s your head? You never did get it looked at . . .” Hutch peered at his friend’s eyes, trying to recall the symptoms of a slow intracranial bleed. Blown pupils? Unsteady gait?

“Aw, I’m good. It’s been three days!” Starsky pushed him away irritably, dropping heavily on the couch. “Aches like a son of a bitch, but I’ll just sleep it off. Got any aspirin?”

“Enough for both of us.” Hutch located the bottle in the cabinet and considered the food options. “You hungry? I could scramble up a couple of eggs.” He shook out four aspirins and swallowed two of them with water, filling a cup for Starsky afterwards.

“Had eggs this morning on the ship, Hutch,” Starsky chided gently. The soft expression of his eyes and the crooked curve of his mouth went right through Hutch, doing more to ease his weariness than a full body massage. “Besides, you’re as tired as me. Call up Pizzaman and have ’em deliver, then get off your feet.”

“You asked for it.” Hutch dragged the phone cord over to the couch and joined Starsky, handing over the aspirin and water. “Any chance you’ll go easy on your digestive system after all that cruise food and opt for a vegetarian pizza?”

“That’s like un-American or something.” Starsky downed the painkiller with a swig of water and took possession of the phone. “We need protein after running all over that ship and you driving like a maniac across the dunes.”

“And you screaming in my ear.” Hutch elbowed him in the ribs, getting a grunt and a playful shove from Starsky. He laughed, going for Starsky’s unprotected belly with both hands.

“I was not screaming! I was navigating,” Starsky retorted, fending off Hutch’s ticking fingers. “Who taught you how to drive anyway?” He dropped the phone into the cushions, wiggled sideways on the couch, and brought up one foot to keep Hutch at bay.

That just made Hutch even more determined to torment his ticklish friend. He knew every one of Starsky’s sensitive spots. Back when they were taking hand-to-hand combat classes at the police academy, Hutch had discovered how ridiculously easy it was to make him laugh. Just a couple of feather-light strokes across Starsky’s waistline or up under the ribs, and he was helpless.

“After that kamikaze race, no more complaining about my driving.” Starsky chortled, using some very unconventional wrestling moves with his hands and feet. He raised his arm to launch an offensive by going for Hutch’s most receptive area, behind his ears, and Hutch caught a whiff of pure, unadulterated Starsky.

Caught with Starsky’s arm around his neck, Hutch flashed on the memory of Starsky’s shoulders and forehead pressing against his. The stink of engine oil, sweat, and fear clogged his nose, and the feel of Starsky’s controlled panic pushing against him was the only thing keeping him steady. The bomb had been a dead weight in his arms, but Starsky had been alive, shining proof that together they were able to work miracles.

“Never letting you behind the wheel ever!” Starsky curled his knees to his chest to protect his belly and Hutch attacked, going for the vulnerable bottoms of his feet. Starsky let out a delightful peel of laughter and kicked out, just avoiding his chin. “Johnny Rutherford you ain’t.”

“A dune buggy is a vastly different vehicle than the tomato.” Hutch twisted away, and pounced, his longer torso a distinct advantage. He pushed Starsky onto his back and straddled him, keeping up a steady tickling action across Starsky’s chest and belly. All the leftover stress of the ship-length dash clutching an active bomb fell away, and Hutch shouted for the sheer happiness of being alive with Starsky.

“Like hell it is! No more complaining about my driving!” Starsky repeated, still laughing. His mouth was open wide with joy, and for one single moment, Hutch thought about swooping down on those moist, full lips to kiss him.

Damn.

Where had that idea come from?

Hutch reared back, retreating to his end of the couch with a swift intake of breath. “W-where’s the phone?” he asked to change the subject. “I’m starving.”

Starsky hauled the receiver out from under his right hip. “What just happened there?” he asked, bewilderment replacing the unbridled laughter.

“Tired, Starsk. Hungry.” Hutch dialed up Pizzaman and ordered the usual-an extra-large, half pepperoni and sausage for Starsky and half mushroom and olive for himself. It never failed that some of the olives slid over onto the meat side and a couple of slices of pepperoni migrated to the veggie side, so they both got a piece with “everything” in the end.

“I’m rank. I’m gonna take a shower.” Starsky, never modest in front of his partner, unbuttoned his shirt as he got up and headed for the bathroom. “My red shirt still in your drawer?”

“Yeah, and there’s a pair of shorts from the last time we played basketball, too,” Hutch answered, untangling the phone cord but he couldn’t concentrate on the knots. He kept seeing Starsky’s long body just slightly ahead of him, pale-blue dress shirt plastered to his body with sweat, and those indecent white pants outlining every single inch of his maleness. He’d been more naked with those pants on than . . . .

Hutch froze with his hand cupped over his groin, the heat of his erection branding his palm.

Shit, he couldn’t do this. Wasn’t right. Wasn’t . . .what?

Normal.

Wasn’t normal to imagine your male partner naked. The sound of the shower splashing on the tile-and Starsky’s bare skin-and his voice raised in song didn’t help at all.

“Love is like oxygen, you get too much . . .” Starsky warbled over the roar of water in the pipes. The song that had been playing on the car radio.

Great, now Hutch was going to have that annoying tune running through his head for the rest of the night.

He got up, tucking the phone back in its place. Think of anything but Starsky covered in sweat, his chest heaving and his eyes wild and bright. And the way he’d curved into Hutch once the bomb had launched out of their grasp. They’d held each other up, watching the black boxes arc out over the open water. The explosion had buffeted their bodies, pushing them closer together as the water whooshed up into a mini-tsunami. He’d gripped Starsky’s arm, high on adrenaline and too shaky to stand on his own.

Needed something to distract him from visions of Starsky in those snug white ducks hugging the round globes of his ass.

The mail.

Perfect. A pile of bills would drive these weird, raving thoughts away. He needed food, sleep, and normalcy. That was it. This was just emotional backlash from all the crap on the boat. No more cruises, ever.

Hutch padded outside in his bare feet to grab the pile of mail and sorted through the envelopes while standing on the edge of the canal. He loved this little corner of the world. The quaint cottage was situated just far enough away from the nearest neighbor that he could feel isolated from the city. Yet, the grocery was just a hop, skip, and a jump across the canal bridge and down the next street over. He liked having the sound of nature when he woke up in the morning; the quack of the ducks and the drone of bees busy pollinating the local flora. Sure, the frogs had been difficult to get used to when he’d first moved in, but now their croaking never kept him awake.

Walking into the house, he tossed the electric bill, phone bill, a reminder that he needed an oil change, and four supermarket flyers on the kitchen table. There was a note from his sister Karen on a Ziggy card asking if he planned to join the Hutchinson anniversary cruise, and a moose postcard from Abby who was visiting her brother in Colorado. The very last envelope was from his landlord. Hutch had just ripped the flap open when Starsky emerged fully dressed, toweling his hair dry.

“Water’s not hot enough and there’s no pressure,” Starsky said. “Get anything good in the mail?”

“Falucci’s raising my rent!” Hutch exclaimed angrily. Every positive thought he’d had about the house was replaced by grievances. The heater never worked, the canal stunk of sewage on hot days, and there was no water pressure. Not to mention the racket from the damn frogs during mating season. “One hundred dollars!”

“One hundred dollars!” Starsky echoed. “He’s charging you three-fifty for this dump? That’s highway robbery.”

“Four hundred, Starsky.” Hutch flung the offending message down among the mess on the table. “He raised it up from two-fifty to three barely a year ago. I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Are you gonna have to move?” Starsky rubbed his flat belly and grinned when it rumbled.

“I may have to. There’s no way I’m paying that.” Hutch stalked over to the phone. “I’m going to call up that money-grubbing thief and give him a piece of my mind.”

“Hutch, it’s after nine o’clock at night,” Starsky reasoned, blocking his way. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not polite to call after nine? Wait ’til the morning so you can cool off.”

“I’m not about to cool off. Where does he think he can get off charging four hundred?” Hutch snarled just as the doorbell rang.

“Pizza’s here!” Starsky said brightly, patting Hutch on the chest. “You gonna be good?”

“Starsky!” Hutch grumped but dug into his pocket to cover the pizza. “Here’s twenty.”

“More than enough.” Starsky grinned at him, his dark blue eyes teasing and concerned at the same time. “I should give you back the change so you can start saving for next month’s rent.”

He paid for the pizza and brought the box over to the kitchen table, filling the room with the heavenly scent of garlic, spicy tomato sauce, pepperoni, and parmesan cheese. Hutch remembered how hungry he was and let himself be coaxed into a chair. Starsky served up slices on napkins printed with the Pizzaman logo before biting into his with gusto.

“Mmm,” Starsky enthused, still obviously trying to distract Hutch from his rant. It was working. Hutch was now mesmerized watching Starsky tease out a string of mozzarella cheese. He bit down to break the long strand, his teeth peeking out between luscious lips, and his pink tongue darted out to pull the cheesy goodness inside.

Hutch groaned and tore his eyes away. He focused on his own dinner, gulping down pizza as if his life depended on eating. Maybe it did. Maybe this was all due to low blood sugar. “I could go for a beer,” he announced. Getting just drunk enough to pass out might help, too. “You want one?”

“Is the pope a Pole?” Starsky laughed, removing an offending mushroom from his sausage and pepperoni. “Hutch, if your folks had such a hard time living together, how’d they stay married for thirty-five years?”

“Travel, and lots of it,” Hutch replied, happy for any subject that didn’t allow him to moon over Starsky. He popped the caps off two long necked bottles cold from the fridge. “My dad was an engineer. He helped design pipelines in Europe, the Middle East, anywhere but the US. Kept him out of Duluth for months at a time, which gave Mom lots of freedom. She didn’t have to work, and she lived alone except for Karen and me.”

“No wonder you don’t talk about your parents much,” Starsky mused. “They argue when they were together?”

“No, far from it. Wouldn’t have been . . .” He thought back, picturing his parents both in the same room, a rare enough occurrence. “Seemly,” he said, using Louise Hutchinson’s favorite word. “They just-didn’t talk. Dinners were always very quiet. It was as if having them together sucked all the oxygen out of the room, leaving an empty void.” He shouldn’t have revealed so much. The sudden insight into his parent’s acrimony was shocking, almost like a bomb going off inside his head. He’d never allowed himself to admit how much they’d affected his childhood with their icy distain and rigid formality.

“I didn’t know any different. Karen and I- we thought this was the way all families were. And separately, my parents were wonderful,” Hutch said hastily, to nullify his own comments. “I mean, I spent a great summer in Paris with my dad when I was twelve, and when my mom and sister came over to bring me back, they ended up extending their visit. The whole family stayed in a two-bedroom flat right off the Champs Elysee, and we had a ball. The best summer ever.” He could still taste the crisp, perfection of his first sip of wine, on the occasion of his parent’s sixteenth wedding anniversary. No other glass of wine had ever tasted as good since. “Picnics in the Bois de Boulogne with sandwiches made from Port Salut cheese and tomatoes on hot baguettes fresh from the bakery.”

“Different worlds. My parents argued all the time, at the top of their lungs. And then they made up-equally loud.” He grinned wolfishly. “They’d suddenly need to go out for a beer at the bar on the corner and leave me with Nicky. Talk about arguing . . .” He rolled his eyes and raised his beer bottle, clinking it with Hutch’s. “They’d come back holding hands, and we’d be beating the crap out of each other. Wonder how any of us live together, huh?”

It was a question of being able to breathe, Hutch thought. Being able to relax and just be with another person. Starsky was that person for him. Starsky brought life and ease and joy with him every time he entered the room.

“If your landlord won’t reduce the rent,” Starsky said, balling his napkin and tossing it into the sink. “You can always bunk in with me.”

Images of the two of them pressed side by side, heat rising off their bodies in waves, their mouths open and gasping swamped Hutch. Live together?

“Thanks, buddy. I don’t think it’ll come to that. What he’s doing is illegal.” Hutch picked up the pizza box and transferred it into the fridge. Starsky would finish off the last two pieces for breakfast. “There must be some kind of ruling on rent control.”

“I don’t think Godzilla attacking Tokyo could keep me awake tonight.” Starsky stretched, his red shirt riding up enough that Hutch could see that narrow line of dark hair that pointed straight down his belly towards his groin. “Gonna hit the hay.”

“I’ll get you a pillow and blanket.” Hutch fled the kitchen, but the sight of Starsky’s narrow waist and the tantalizing bulge that molded his cut-offs to his body wouldn’t go away. This had never been such an overwhelming problem. He’d seen Starsky half- dressed, and even completely nude, on multiple occasions. For God’s sake, they’d roomed together at the academy and bumped hips in the tiny stateroom bathroom on the SS Amapola just days earlier without these rampant fantasies tripping him up.

“Thanks, Hutch.” Starsky was right behind him to grab the puffy pillow and they collided when Hutch turned, his arms full of blanket.

“Starsk!” Hutch cried, startled, his body remembering the sweet warmth of Starsky’s hip and shoulder. He had a sharp ache like going cold turkey from some addictive substance when he stepped back. “Didn’t realize you were so close.”

“You okay?” Starsky asked, those blue eyes seeing Hutch all too clearly. “You’re all red in the face.”

“Hot in here, don’t you think so?” Hutch backed up so quickly that he smacked into the end of the bed and landed on his rump.

“Luckily the bed broke your fall,” Starsky said, chuckling. “You want me to tuck you in?” He leaned over, extending a hand, the pillow and blanket held tightly against his right side. “I could even read you a bedtime story and give you a good-night kiss.”

Hutch gaped. Had Starsky guessed what he was thinking about so easily? Was he really that transparent? And why had the teasing left his partner’s eyes, overlaid with a sort of wistful sweetness?

He was imagining- what was the word? Projecting his feelings. That was it. There was no way that David Starsky wanted to kiss him

Plastering on what he hoped was a condescending expression, Hutch waved him away. “Starsk! Next you’ll be wanting to curl up next to me and have a slumber party.”

“Suit yourself!” Starsky called over his shoulder, lugging his bedding into the living room. “I’d be willing to paint your toenails for you, too. Rosie Dobey tol’ me all the girls do it when they have sleepovers.”

Hutch’s only response was to lob a pillow in Starsky’s general direction. He curled around the second one on his bed, sure that thoughts of Starsky kissing him would keep him awake.

Starsky dreamed the bomb went off. There was a whump and a thud, the deck shuddering under his feet as he watched a wall of water crest out of the sea and break across the bow of the ship.

Searing heat swelled, flames shooting up the walls, incinerating everything in their path and filling the room with choking smoke.

“Hutch!” he shouted, searching desperately for his partner in the darkened, smoky corridors. There was no one on board. Not the Amapola’s unfortunate captain, not a single Cairo brother, and certainly not Hutch.

Gasping for breath, Starsky heaved upward, clawing to escape. Waking up didn’t change the view; Hell had been recreated in Hutch’s canal-side cottage.

Heat shoved at him like a physical being. He stumbled from the couch, flinching as flames raced up the twisted driftwood propped against the wall only inches away. There was nothing left of the sheer curtains that had once covered the glass-paneled door except smoldering strips of blackened fabric. Glass littered the floor, glistening like a million diamonds in the eerie light of the inferno.

“Hutch!” Starsky screamed this time, his throat raw from the acrid air. “Hutch! Fire!”

The crackle and hiss of the fire eating every dry timber and beam in the old house was louder than any fireworks Starsky had ever watched on Fourth of July. He dropped to his knees, remembering fire safety presentations from grade school. Stop, drop, and roll.

That didn’t seem to make any sense. Maybe it was stop, drop, and cover?

He scrambled forward, catching a glimpse of Hutch’s bed when the wind picked up, blowing smoke sideways. Starsky heaved in a lungful of half-decent air and coughed again. “Hutch! Wake up!”

Flames had taken the whole left side of the house, and were racing toward the bed where Hutch lay unaware. Unearthly fire light glowed, illuminating Hutch’s pale hair like the halo in an altar painting.

Starsky had to get there before the fire took fiendish pleasure in roasting Hutch alive.

Fighting for a single unhampered breath, Starsky yanked the covers off his partner, grabbing Hutch’s arm. “Hutch, we gotta get out of here!”

Hutch was as limp as a corpse.

“No, damn it! You don’t do this to me!” Starsky yelled, hauling him off the bed, wheezing with the effort. Hutch hit the floor with a thud that should have waked the dead, but it had no noticeable effect on him. “Work with me here, you big lug!” Starsky encouraged hoarsely.

Fireman’s carry was out. Wasn’t that the one that required two people to carry the unconscious victim?

Over his shoulders, then, like a sack of potatoes.

Fire licked at the bottom of the bed, missing Hutch’s bare foot by inches. Starsky mentally chanted every swear word he knew, because he’d used up whatever oxygen was allotted for speaking minutes ago. Hutch was providing no help whatsoever, and he had two inches and probably ten pounds on Starsky. How in the hell was Starsky supposed to rescue the prince in this damned farce of a fairy tale?

There was no breathable oxygen left, no chance to survive inside the house. Starsky had to act fast and get the hell out of Dodge.

With a mighty heave, he slung Hutch onto his back, running fast across the superheated floor to the kitchen. The counter provided a perfect place to balance his burden without dropping Hutch onto the floor. Starsky wrapped a dishtowel around his arm and slammed his elbow through the window over the sink, shattering the glass.

The draft of fresh air was like a hit of one hundred percent oxygen and Starsky inhaled gratefully, his head clearing enough to think for a few more seconds. But the open window just provided more fuel to feed the fire.

Blazing ribbons of destructive power consumed the wooden house, obliterating the home Hutch had created. The heat was so intense Starsky could feel the inside of his throat drying up, robbing him of moisture. They weren’t going to last much longer.

Not even taking a moment to clean away the broken panes, Starsky shoved Hutch through the opening and hopped up on the counter to follow. There was no way he could protect Hutch from hitting the ground full force and his heart contracted when he heard the sickening thud.

“Hutch! Move your ass!” Starsky shouted in a raspy croak, his voice coming out like some toy with a defective valve. He grabbed Hutch’s arms, dragging him away from the rear of the house, unmindful of the tangle of overgrown pampas grass whipping his bleeding arms. In the distance, he could finally hear the sweet shrill of a siren; hopefully, a fire engine headed their way.

Black smoke was billowing from the house, engulfing the entire neighborhood. Starsky had just gotten Hutch behind the relative shelter of the car when a red pumper truck roared around the corner, siren on full volume.

Starsky was focused on one person, and paid no heed to the chaos. The firemen swarmed around him as he huddled on the ground over his partner, pulling heavy hoses full of water to douse the flames.

“Hutch, please,” Starsky pleaded, franticly searching for any sign that Hutch was still alive. He probed his partner’s neck, finding a very faint pulse after six agonizing seconds. But there was no reassuring rise and fall of his chest. No puff of breath from between his dry, cracked lips.

Desperate, Starsky let rote memory take over. Sucking in a lungful of smoke-infused oxygen, he tipped Hutch’s head back until his mouth opened and pressed his own lips over Hutch’s. Starsky poured breath into his friend’s body, keeping him alive with everything he had.

His heart pounding with exertion, Starsky continued breathing for Hutch. When the unyielding lips pressed against his parted with a gasp, Starsky barely noticed.

Hutch coughed, his eyes snapping open, boring into Starsky’s.

“Keep breathing, you idiot!” Starsky collapsed over his partner’s heaving chest, laboring to breathe. The fear that he’d held at bay slammed into him like a Mac truck. That was too close by half. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Sir!” An emphatic voice intruded on Starsky’s full blown panic. “We need to get you out of here. You’re too close to the house.” He guided Starsky to his wobbly feet. “It’s not safe.”

No shit. Embers glowed like orange jewels scattered across the blacktop and the flames burst through the roof with the force of guided missiles taking out a enemy camp. Starsky thought of ‘Nam.

“H-hutch was . . .” He reached out to his partner and was astonished when strong fingers grasped his. Something akin to an electric shock traveled straight up his arm to his heart and burst there, setting off violent aftershocks. He steeled himself, locking away all the extraneous and distracting emotions in some dark recess of his brain.

“Stay down,” the paramedic warned Hutch, steadying Starsky and waving over another fireman with a stretcher. “We’ll check you out at the rig.”

“I’m all right,” Hutch whispered hoarsely. “I’m all right.”

“Listen to him!” Starsky said, anger flaring. He leveled a rigid finger at Hutch. “You almost died! Let them do all their damned tests!” He jerked away from the astonished paramedic and ducked past a jumble of hoses, tanker trucks, and busy firemen, heading across the lane.

He couldn’t get the image of Hutch lying still and lifeless out of his head. It was the single most horrifying thing he’d ever seen. Far worse than finding Hutch huddled in an alley with a cluster of needle marks in the crook of his elbow.

It hurt to breathe, but the pain had nothing to do with the smoke still lodged behind his heart, clogging his airways. Starsky perched on a rock on the bank of the canal, watching the paramedics work on Hutch. The shining blond head was only partially visible through the crowd of firefighters and equipment but Starsky could still see him. He couldn’t take his eyes off Hutch and couldn’t bring himself to go over to him. Anger burned through his chest like the fire ravaging the house. Hutch had died-or so very nearly as to be the same thing. How the hell was he supposed to get over that?

“Starsky?” The balding paramedic with the rangy walk of a rodeo cowboy blocked his view of Hutch. Starsky shifted on his rock to keep his partner in sight. “I need to check you out, listen to your breath sounds.”

“Nothing wrong with me,” Starsky said and ruined the claim by coughing until he was sure he was going to hack up a lung.

“Sounds like it,” the paramedic said dryly. “And a bleeding arm is nothing, huh? Listen, buddy, it’s my job. You want my captain to have another reason to yell at me?”

That made him laugh, just a little, but it helped calm the terror inside. “Your captain does that, too?”

“Must be a captain thing. Your buddy said the two of you were cops. I’m Dan.” He placed his stethoscope over Starsky’s breastbone and listened. Starsky concentrated on taking slow, even breaths but inhaling deeply made his head swim and his throat ache.

“You’ve got some smoke inhalation, which could be serious,” Dan said, looping his stethoscope around his neck. He wound some gauze around Starsky’s arm with expertise. “I’m recommending that you and Hutchinson get checked out at Memorial. Some oxygen therapy would do you good.”

“I’ll live.” Starsky knuckled his stinging eyes, wishing for about a gallon of cold, refreshing water. And a bath.

And Hutch.

He ached for Hutch the way he’d once ached for Helen, after she was dead. What did that mean?

“How’s Hutch doing?” Starsky asked as casually as possible. There were too many people between them; he couldn’t see Hutch anymore. An ambulance had pulled up just beyond the crush of vehicles jamming the lane. When the driver got out to help load Hutch’s gurney inside, Starsky finally caught a glimpse of his partner again. Hutch looked wasted, eyes closed, pale lashes invisible against his wan cheeks, and the green plastic oxygen mask looked like a fright mask.

“Why don’t you get in the ambulance and see for yourself?” Dan wheedled. “Get some oxygen. I’d throw in some Theophylline to open up your bronchioles. It’d help your breathing.”

“Hutch stopped b-breathing,” Starsky said stubbornly, locked on that one specific fact. “He needs . . . .”

“Starsky?”

Roughened by the acrid smoke, the voice didn’t sound anything like Hutch’s usual mellow tone, but Starsky instantly recognized his partner. He heard him over the crash of the roof beams falling into the ruined house and the raucous squawk of the squadron commander’s radio dispatching more fire companies to the canal neighborhood. Apparently, there were multiple fires burning in a five block radius.

“Starsk?”

He heard that voice in his heart and always would.

Looking up, he locked eyes with Hutch across the expanse of space as if there weren’t an army of firemen and half a dozen emergency vehicles between them. The green plastic mask was hanging by a green elastic cord around Hutch’s neck, and Starsky saw him inhale sharply to speak again.

“I’m coming!” Starsky vowed over the noise and confusion.

Hutch heard him. Of course, he did.

Hutch nodded and closed his eyes again, and Starsky felt something loosen and ease inside. He could breathe.

Standing wearily, Starsky nodded at Dan. “I could use a hit of oh-two after all.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hutch listened numbly, almost unable to process what was being said. “Thanks, Captain. If you learn anything else, get back to me.” He stared at the telephone for a moment before returning it to the phone cradle, incredulous.

“What’d Dobey say?” Starsky asked, digging into the lumpy eggs he’d brought down from the second floor hospital cafeteria.

“Most definitely arson,” Hutch muttered, staring at the wide bandage on Starsky’s left arm. Starsky had eight stitches there and dozens of little cuts in his feet, all because he’d pulled Hutch out of a burning house. Which didn’t even begin to factor in doing rescue breathing with heavy-duty smoke inhalation.

It was all a lot to take in, especially since Hutch didn’t remember much. He’d sat in the ambulance, watching the firemen hose down his cottage, completely disoriented, and then vomited all over the unfortunate paramedic. Apparently, the nausea and minor memory loss was the result of a concussion. Although his memory of the night was hazy, the clearest recollection was of Starsky joining him in the ambulance and pushing the oxygen mask up over his nose and mouth.

Both of them had been astonishingly lucky. Starsky had been released almost immediately and was only hanging around because the doctor wanted to keep Hutch overnight. Smoke inhalation had kept him on an oxygen cannula until an hour ago. He still had the leftover sensation that he’d stuck his head up a chimney flue and gotten a lungful of soot. “Just like you thought,” Hutch explained what Dobey told him. “A Molotov cocktail with a potent mixture of turpentine, propane, and rubber cement with a Chinese firecracker glued in the neck of the bottle for a fuse came through the front window.” Hutch coughed and the stitched up gash on his back stung like a mother-fucker.

“Damn.” Starsky put down his fork, the stark realization plain on his face. “One of the firemen said they managed to save some of your stuff.”

“Yeah, remarkably, the house wasn’t completely destroyed.” Hutch thought about his cozy little cottage; the way the sun streamed through the windows when he played the piano, watching the ducks along the shore while drinking his morning breakfast health shake, or just kicking back with Starsky watching the TV and sharing beers. He would have readily paid four hundred dollars a month to get that all back. “I’ll have to talk to the-insurance, uh . . .find out if anything was salvageable, when I can sift through the ashes to get my stuff.” He thought about another loss: clothes. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

“We never took the suitcases out of your car, remember?” Starsky crooked an apologetic smile, his lips closed around the straw in his orange juice carton. “Clothes’ll probably smell like smoke, but they were safe and unburned in the trunk the whole time. Not everything you own but you got clothes.”

“You kissed me.”

Starsky stared at him as if Hutch had grown a second head. In retrospect, Hutch realized that he’d blurted out something that should have stayed inside his head, but the sight of Starsky’s lips pursed abound the straw and the scratchy sound of his breathing had triggered a most amazing flashback. It was as if Hutch’s dream of the night before had taken on life and a weird sort of validity.

“You still suffering some after-effects?” Starsky quipped, reaching over to feel Hutch’s forehead with the back of his hand. “No fever.”

Starsky’s hand felt great against his skin, smooth and warm. Just right.

Even so, Hutch tilted away from his partner’s concern. He didn’t want to look like a complete fool. “I’m fine, just waiting for the doctor to come release me. I dreamt you kissed me, then.”

Starsky ducked his head over the last of his eggs, Hutch was astonished to see his cheeks flush. “I gave you mouth-to-mouth. That’s not kissing. Not the same thing at all.”

“But I wanted you to.” Hutch closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see Starsky recoil from that revelation. He’d always believed in telling the whole truth and nothing but; he’d seen how secrets and half-truths could spread dissent through a marriage. Not that he and Starsky were married, it was just a similar connection. Two people who spent nearly all their time together-far more time that his parents had ever invested in their relationship-should not have secrets from one another.

“What about Abby?” Starsky asked, and his voice sounded so sad that Hutch opened his eyes to look on his partner’s mournful face.

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Hutch confessed, watching Starsky stir the eggs into a mess of yolk and bits of leftover toast. “Just-” He faltered. He hadn’t given thought to his supposed girlfriend. The idea of Starsky kissing him had become such a very definitely arousing attraction that nothing else penetrated. “Starsky?” He hadn’t meant to sound quite so plaintive and he coughed to cover his acute embarrassment. “You haven’t said how . . . .”

“I never, ever wanted to give you mouth-to-mouth,” Starsky blurted out, hurling himself out of his chair to prowl the room like a caged animal. Hutch was sure that a football field wouldn’t have contained the pent up energy.

“You scared the crap out of me!” Starsky said out of breath, even though he’d only made two circuits of the ER holding room. “And yeah, I would have much rather kissed you, but I had to save your fucking life!” The last was said just slightly too loud and he froze, guilt on his face, looking toward the half open door as if expecting the medical staff to come in and throw him out of the hospital.

“So, where does that leave us?” Hutch asked, just as breathless without any exertion at all.

“Out on a limb?” Starsky’s natural good humor resurfaced when no one rushed in blathering about noise levels in a hospital zone. He offered half a smile in Hutch’s direction.

“I love you.” Hutch let the cat out of the bag. It had been too hard lately to keep the little beast concealed.

Starsky watched Hutch for a long time, his face partially turned away, expression revealing little except that the half-smile had turned pensive, and a little sad. “I could say a lot of things to that, but only one means anything.” He nodded and held out his hand. “I love you, too.”

Starsky’s fingers closing around Hutch’s weren’t just right, they were perfect. The right shape, the right fit, the right size, and attached to the right person. There was a lightness in his chest, as if all his deprived lung cells had finally gorged themselves.

Love is like oxygen.

Hutch squeezed his partner’s hand. “Thanks.”

“For what?” Starsky came closer and perched on the edge of the bed, ready to flee if a nurse came in. Hutch tightened his grip, anchoring him there.

“Kissing me.” He wanted to sing but contented himself with a smile, to celebrate the union in some acceptable way.

“It wasn’t a kiss, I gave you mouth-to-mouth,” Starsky countered, his face now about two inches away from Hutch’s. He bridged the tiny gap and placed a very chaste, closed mouth kiss on Hutch’s curved lips. “That’s a kiss.”

“That was a peck,” Hutch muttered against Starsky’s mouth and parted his lips, slipping his tongue through to probe and tease. He felt the rush of Starsky’s breath filling him up, and their lips seemed to fuse, surging the kiss into a cinematic masterpiece. Bogey and Bacall-no, Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant couldn’t have done better.

Hutch threaded his fingers through the fine curls at the nape of Starsky’s neck, holding him for a heartbeat longer. Starsky smelled like gasoline, oily smoke, and life. Just as Hutch was sure he’d get high from simply kissing, Starsky pulled away.

“Not here,” Starsky whispered. “Let me take you home. We’ll get you some doctor clothes like I got on.” He plucked at the blue and green scrubs he wore, courtesy of the admitting ER nurse. “And deal with stuff once we get to my house.”

When had Starsky become the voice of reason? “Yeah.” Hutch reluctantly released his hold on his partner, inhaling one last time to retain a few molecules of their shared air.

“There’s so much to do. I should call Abby.” But not now. Not with the feel of Starsky still on his lips. “And I didn’t tell you the rest of what Dobey said.”

“You’ve got sick leave coming?” Starsky touched his cheek briefly, a butterfly sort of a caress that still left a lasting after-impression.

“That rat bastard Falucci got hauled in this morning, charged with five counts of arson.”

“He torched his own places?”

“Not personally, but the fire marshal recognized the accelerant signature and picked up Ember Stevens.”

“Short guy, with coke-bottle glasses, sucks on the end of a match all the time?”

Hutch tapped his nose, content to be with Starsky if they couldn’t keep kissing. Proximity was better than nothing at all. He didn’t dwell on his own almost demise, but knew without being told that Starsky would remember it. For always, just as he sheltered the memory of his buddy- collapsed on the rooftop of a crummy tenement and barely breathing from a toxic chemical compound- deep inside his heart. He hadn’t let Starsky die, and Starsky had kept him alive.

“You got it in one. Falucci apparently paid Stevens to burn down his properties, make it look like some firebug was in the area, and then Stevens was supposed to jump a bus out of state. He was in line at Greyhound when the cops arrested him.” Hutch took a deep breath, pleased at his ability to do so without coughing. “Case solved in under ten hours. Falucci proved to be an easy nut to crack.”

“Anyone else hurt?” Starsky asked and his eyes were momentarily haunted.

“Three of the houses were unoccupied, and I suspect that Falucci thought mine would be, too.” Hutch frowned. “I called Falucci right before I met you on the dock to tell him my rent would be late.” He’d come home unexpectedly early from the cruise-but Stevens had lobbed the Molotov cocktail even though there was a car parked beside the house. “The fifth building was his own house. He was going bankrupt and the properties were all going into foreclosure.”

“So you would have been out of a place to live either way,” Starsky surmised. “I told you you could come live at my place.”

“Guess I’ll have to, for a few days,” Hutch agreed, and the idea was very appealing. He could see the two of them, joking at the end of a long day and doing whatever pleasant things came next.

But then there was Abby. Abby would wonder why he didn’t come bunk with her, would ask questions that he didn’t want to answer. “Or maybe I should go to a hotel.”

“Hutch, I gotta couch!”

“And we’ve got jobs, colleagues who won’t look too kindly on two cops who-”

“Love each other,” Starsky said softly, glancing up at the door to the hospital corridor again. “We’ll take what they throw at us.”

“You willing to risk that?” Hutch said, sadness overwhelming him. “Willing to put everything on the line so that when we call for back-up, no one comes?”

“Nobody will think it’s strange that you’re crashing at my place after you house was burned down,” Starsky insisted. “You’ll get lots of casseroles and offers of places to stay, but you already got mine. Then you tell Abby it’s easier to be at my house. Saves gas in the morning when we drive into the precinct.”

“And when I find a new place-”

“Which you will, with a lower rent,” Starsky said confidently.

“No one would be surprised when you help me move in.” Hutch brightened, seeing the advantages. This could work. He had a place to sleep, a job, smoky clothes, and Starsky. Most of all, Starsky.

“Everybody will think you’re being all brave in the face of adversary.” Starsky smiled winsomely and pressed his fingers into Hutch’s bicep, about to kiss him again.

“Adversity,” Hutch corrected and fully intended to kiss him, too.

“Your discharge papers!” the nurse called out cheerily.

Starsky back-pedaled so fast he nearly fell on the plate of eggs he’d put on the seat of the chair. Hutch burst out laughing which made him cough and he reached to steady his partner.

“I’m your dayshift nurse, Bettyanne. You all right?” she asked, fishing her stethoscope from her uniform pocket.

“Fine, fine!” Hutch took a relatively cough-free breath to demonstrate.

The nurse nodded, handing him a paper and pen. “Sorry this took so long. We had a whole bunch of church-goers from the place three blocks down. They had a parish dinner last night and apparently the potato salad went bad.” She shuddered. “Vomiting worshipers all over the place this morning.” Bettyanne plugged her stethoscope into her ears and continued to chat the whole time. “Anyway, Dr. Michaels said that as long as you weren’t having any more dyspnea-shortness of breath to you non-medicalese speakers, and were oriented times three that you could go home with your friend.” She waved a hand at Starsky while listening to Hutch’s chest. “The doctor said your friend could keep an eye on you.”

“He did, huh?” Hutch inhaled one last time for her expert ears and grinned at Starsky.

“I’m well oriented.” He knew the rules of a head injury better than most. “President Ford is in the White House, it’s September-”

“October now,” Starsky reminded.

“October.” Hutch peered at the two fingers Starsky held up and mirrored him, making a V sign. Peace? No, the number two. “October second, and I’m in the hospital.”

“Very good,” she congratulated, marking the appropriate box on her notes. “Lungs sound good. You’ll be coughing up black-tinged sputum for another day or two, but all in all, you two escaped serious respiratory damage,” Bettyanne said. “Just sign the discharge form there and there-” She pointed out two lines with big X’s marked beside them. “And see your primary physician-you do have a primary physician?”

The night shift nurse had not talked half so much. Hutch had been kind of out of it when they’d arrived in the ambulance and mostly focused on Starsky’s pale, sooty face, but he was sure the night shift nurse hadn’t jabbered on like a teen-ager with her first phone.

“We do, our doctor’s with the police department,” Starsky assured. “Can we get out of here?”

“Of course! Let me just check off all the boxes on my notes, and rip this-” She laughed and separated the discharge papers into thee pieces of pink, goldenrod and white. “You get the pink copy. If you have any problems, give us a call–”

“For the first twenty-four hours and then go to your regular doctor,” Hutch recited. “I know the drill. Can I have some pants to go home in?”

“I’ll bring them right back!” Bettyanne trilled and scurried out on her rubber soled shoes.

She was good on her word and immediately brought a blue cotton shirt and green cotton pants. Exactly opposite to what Starsky had on.

“Almost twins,” Starsky said, but Hutch could feel him watching him, making sure he was okay to leave. Starsky’s devotion fed something deep down inside him, nurturing his soul. “You know what we could do when you’re feeling better? Take a walk on the beach, look for another piece of driftwood to replace the one that burned up.”

“Guess I’ll need to replace a lot of things . . .” Hutch trailed off, mourning his favorite plants and his piano.

“As long as you’re alive, the rest is gravy.”

Hutch found standing harder than he’d expected. He was light-headed and heavy-limbed all at the same time. When Starsky wrapped his uninjured arm around Hutch’s shoulders, it didn’t just help keep him upright, it righted his world. Whatever happened down the line, however their relationship played out, he knew there was true love between them. And, unlike his parents, he knew that he could live happily right next to Starsky for the rest of his life.

The detail that was Abby nagged at him, diminishing his joy. He’d figure out what to do about her later. Women were still very appealing, very seductive. He wasn’t sure he wanted to give up entirely on the feminine sex, especially since all he and Starsky had done was kiss.

But what kisses! Fantastic, full-bodied kisses that left him yearning for more. There had to be more.

“How you doing?” Starsky chuckled when they got outside. “You look like hell.” He tsked, turning his head against Hutch’s cheek, his curls brushing the side of Hutch’s mouth like the memory of those kisses.

“Doing fine, doing great as a matter of fact!” Hutch announced, taking a deep breath. It was one of those rare days when the wind blew all the smog out to sea, leaving brilliant, shockingly blue skies and miles upon miles of crisp air. Glorious, fresh, breathable air. “Never going to take this for granted again.” Hutch sniffed the autumn-tinted air.

“You musta had too much of that pure-grade oh-two they got in there,” Starsky teased. “You’re high.”

“You made me this way.” Hutch pointed a mocking finger at him, definitely feeling giddy. He searched the parking lot, looking for a familiar red Torino with a long, white stripe without success. A few feet away from them, a taxi pulled up, disgorging a pregnant women with the look of someone who was past-due and about ready to pop. She was accompanied by a hovering little milquetoast of a man with a long-suffering face. “Where’s the car?” Hutch asked.

“We came here by ambulance, remember?” Starsky smirked, his mouth bowed up in a grin that made him look even more kissable than usual. Hutch would have to remember to mock Starsky more often.

And tickle him.

“Last time I saw your car, it was surrounded by fire engines and mine was back at Metro, probably pining away after a whole week without me.”

“Cars don’t pine.”

“They can smell like pine,” Starsky retorted, pretending to hold something between his fingertips. “Those little cardboard Christmas trees with the real pine tree scent.”

“Real pine tree, my ass.” Hutch raised his arm to catch the cabby’s attention before he drove off. “Taxi?”

“Where to, fellas?” The bored driver said over the melodious harmonies of ABBA crooning about the dancing queen.

Starsky supplied the address and slid into the seat, tugging Hutch by their linked hands.

“You two smell like you been roasted on a campfire,” the cabbie observed, and flicked on his meter.

Hutch realized he didn’t have a dime with him. He glanced at the meter, already at a buck even, and over at Starsky.

Starsky winked, slow, sly, and seductive and nodded. “Still had seven dollars in my shorts pocket from paying the pizza guy.”

“And house keys?” Hutch asked. Starsky’s pants must have gone up in smoke, along with nearly everything else.

“Not over the lintel.” Starsky’s eyes laughed into his. “I found a new hiding place.”

“This is KKBC and that was Sweden’s most famous export, ABBA,” the DJ crowed from the dashboard radio. “Keeping it fresh and groovy on a fantastic morning. Inhale deeply, and get high with that British chart hopping group, Sweet!”

Hutch burst out laughing when the song’s refrain swelled in the confines of the cab, “Love is like oxygen, you get too much you get too high! Not enough and you’re gonna die. . .”

“Love makes you high,” he sang softly to the man next to him who kept him sane, happy and alive. No truer words were ever spoken.

 

The End